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As Long as the Waters Flow John F. Blair, Publisher "There's a continuum of culture that makes us one, that makes us a family," says Lynn Harlan, cultural director of the Cherokee Nation. "We have always been in this place together. This is where the creator put us." Indeed, there's a resurgence of pride among the Indians of the South and East, and it takes many forms. Every August, the Penobscots of Maine stage a hundred-mile journey by canoe against the river or on foot through the forests, mirroring the ancient migrations. Every November in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Wampanoags and other Indians gather for the Day of Mourning, a counter-celebration of Thanksgiving. Once a year, Lumbees in Charlotte board buses for a trip to the tribe's homeland and a day of baptizing and hymns. In Louisiana, the Chitimachas run a school where eighty children are served by twenty teachers and a scholarship fund pays for students' education at any university where they can gain admission. From the Atlantic to the Mississippi, tribes are pursuing federal recognition, undertaking land-claim cases, and running commercial enterprises that are bringing economic development unknown in their history. But the efforts run deeper than that. In their quest to embrace both the past and the future, the tribes are also relearning the ancestral languages, reviving the crafts, and reawakening the old ceremonies. As Long As the Waters Flow takes an honest look at the problems facing the Southern and Eastern tribes and celebrates the people who continue to maintain their native identity despite the pressures of the dominant culture.
Reviews "Frye Gaillard has offered a moving story of survival—but more than survival, a renaissance of the Native American people. In the area east of the Mississippi River, they are no longer a 'vanishing race.' They are here to stay in the land which always has been theirs, from year one, long before others ever came. Despite the difficulties they face, this is a hopeful, exhilarating tale." "Frye Gaillard in words and Carolyn DeMeritt with images has filled a broad gap in our knowledge of tribes in the southern and eastern United States, past and present. Especially absorbing are the accounts of little-known but important peoples whose ancestors escaped removal to the west." “When most Americans think of Indians, they think of the Sioux on the Great Plains, the Navajo of the Southwest, but almost never the many tribes that still live east of the Mississippi River. This thoughtful book tells the stories of Indians as diverse as the Penobscots of Maine, the Iroquois of New York, the Ho-Chunk and Chippewa of Wisconsin, the Pamunkeys of Virginia, the Cherokees and Lumbees of North Carolina, the Creeks of Alabama, and the Houmas and Chitimachas of Louisiana. Through history, profiles, and photographic portraits by Carolyn DeMeritt, Gaillard tells the stories of those who, despite disease, removal, poverty, and oppression have managed to remain and at times even thrive in the lands of their ancestors. This book should be in every county, public, and high school library east of the Mississippi, and probably west of the river too.”
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